Conflict Resolution Requires Spirit-Filling

Today’s quote from the Doctor is on the subject of conflict resolution. Writing about Ephesians 5, Lloyd-Jones stresses the source of the only true solution for human conflicts:

The world is characterized by divisions, by clashes, everybody wanting to be first, everybody wanting to be important. That is, of course, the main cause of all the problems and the difficulties that are confronting the world at this present time. Now the Apostle’s statement asserts that there is really only one solution to that problem, and that is, that men and women be filled with the Holy Spirit of God. It is only as they are filled with the Holy Spirit of God that they can and will submit themselves one to another in the fear of God.

Then he goes on to another great problem, the problem of husbands and wives. Here is a major modern problem. Try to estimate the misery and the unhappiness in the world today because of conflict between husbands and wives. What unhappiness is caused to men and women and children by this! Think of it all over the whole world as it affects all nations—the most advanced as well as the backward. How can that problem be solved? How can it be dealt with? The Apostle’s answer is that there is only one way, and that is, that men and women be filled with the Holy Spirit. It is only husbands and wives who are filled with the Spirit who will have a true view of what a husband should be, and what a wife should be, and what the relationship between them should be. It is the only way to get peace and unity and concord instead of disunity and quarrelling and separation and all that results from these evils.

David Martyn. Lloyd-Jones, Life in the Spirit in Sarriage, Home & Work : An Exposition of Ephesians 5:18 to 6:9 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1974, c1973), 26.